Stargate: Return of the Ancients, Season 2, Ep 8
by Aer-ki Jyr
Summary: Episode, "Misdirection" Year: 2016
1. Chapter 1

The cloaked Alterran scout ship sat 1,100 dekmas away from the Romulan shipyard, observing the five-pronged station and over 400 docked warships as it floated in deep space, far from any star system. The massive station was the same one originally discovered by Sheppard and Mike Stevenson back before the war had started…and as far as they knew the enemy wasn't aware that their base had been located.

That would change in a few minutes, however, but right now the scout ship was waiting for the return of the five puddle jumpers that had quietly been redecorating the enemy's hull with cloaked packages…the first of which just passed into detection range on the ship's navigational system.

It appeared as little more than an outline, identifying itself through the cloaking fields of both ships by means of a specialized comm signal that most civilizations couldn't track, and even the Alterran sensors had to be precisely calibrated to pick up the all but invisible signal, which was necessary to keep cloaked ships from running into each other…or in this case to allow the cloaked jumpers to find and land onboard the scout ship.

One by one they returned, with Sheppard's jumper being the last. Once making sure everyone had returned safely, he ordered the pilot of the scout ship to leave the area via a short hyperspace jump to rendezvous with his command ship.

Looking out the forward viewscreen from the bridge, Sheppard couldn't help but smile as the bluish/white blur of hyperspace faded and the distant sight of his Columnar popped into view. It was a truly magnificent warship, made all the more intimidating from an external view of the monster as the scout ship angled towards the aft of the giant cylinder, headed for the primary hangar bay.

The _Skywalker_ literally swallowed up the scout ship as it set down on the huge internal deck and powered down. Its part in this operation was over, but the mission had barely yet begun.

Using an internal set of rings, Sheppard and the others transferred into the Columnar's interior, then dispatched to their various stations. Ronon accompanied Sheppard to the bridge, which looked like an oversized school bus…long, narrow, and with seated crew in a rows along either side.

Sheppard walked down the open area between them, receiving nods of readiness as he headed for the command chair at the end of the long hallway. He deftly jumped into the organic looking device and powered it up with an almost unconscious thought, reclining backwards slightly as a holographic tactical diagram floated in the air to the right of his chair, detailing the ship's location and nothing else, for the moment.

Directly in front of him the wall altered from a blank bulkhead into a visual display of the space, wrapping around the edges of the command nook to afford him a better view of the area from the Columnar's viewpoint, though there were many visual angles he could select, but Sheppard preferred to look out as if it were a giant window, regardless of the fact that he had full sensors available through the mental uplink into the ship's systems.

Ronon, dressed in full Lantean body armor, walked up beside the Captain's chair and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting and watching the empty view of the stars.

"_If anyone's not ready, now's the time to say so_," Sheppard said to the bridge crew, each seated in a smaller version of the control chair.

To Sheppard's left a holographic avatar of the ship's computer, in the visage of Luke Skywalker, manifested itself. "_All systems are battle ready_. _Troops are standing by for deployment at your command._"

Sheppard did a quick double check of the weapons systems, mentally confirming that the primary weapon had a full capacitor charge standing by. They were about to kick the bee hive and needed to take out as many ships as possible in the first minute of battle.

"_Here we go_," Sheppard announced, sending the Alterran behemoth into hyperspace.

The Columnar disappeared into the massive hyperspace window…then reappeared through another twelve seconds later just off the Romulan station, whose shields were already up, having detected the last couple seconds of their approach through hyperspace despite the tracking countermeasures. The Columnar was just too big to completely hide, given that the station was designed using Lantean technology.

Sheppard immediately began opening the weapon pods as he flew a circuitous course around the perimeter of the fork-like station in order to align the ship down the length of one of the 5 prongs. Meanwhile sensor readings of activity within the station began to skyrocket as defense systems began to come online, along with a handful of ships beginning to power up.

"_Blow 'em_," Sheppard told the ship.

Luke waved a hand as if gesturing towards the view of the station and a number of tiny explosions manifested themselves on the hull…along with the fall of the station's shields protecting both it and the ships berthed inside.

"Now you die," Ronon declared.

With a target lock, Sheppard focused on weapons control and fired off a partial blast from the Columnar's primary weapon, located in the center of the ship's flat bow. The yellow/green streak of destructive energy impacted the side of the nearest docked ship on the outside pylon, cored completely through the ship and exited out the other side…directly into the ship beside it, as well as the next 26 down the row before the energy was fully absorbed, sparing the remaining 16 ships in that line.

Ronon thumped a fist against his armor in approval as Sheppard repositioned the ship to target the row on top of the same pylon and fired again, this time with a larger charge that ripped through the entire row, with a little left over to exit the other side past the station harmlessly into space.

By now several weapons batteries on the station were returning fire with spurts of intense yellow energy, but nothing that could get past the _Skywalker_'s shields. A few of the docked Romulan ships began to disengage from their berths and drift out away from the prongs to engage the Columnar. Once in the clear, the bridge crew targeted them with the plasma cannons, making sure not to hit the station. Sheppard had given specific orders to leave it intact. It was the ships that they needed to destroy.

"_Lorne, clip those batteries_," Sheppard said, simultaneously shifting pesqua weapon control over to his station."

"_My pleasure_," the Lantean said, sitting in the chair just behind Sheppard on the left. With the ship's help, all the weapons batteries on the station were immediately highlighted, making it easy for Lorne to pick out the ones he wanted, firing a single pesqua at each.

The large iris-like doors covering the dorsal pesqua bay opened and a tiny cloud of fireflies raced out and in towards the station…but before they could hit the hull several auxiliary weapon systems came online and shot them out of the sky with super fast, pinpoint silver strikes.

"_What are those?_" Lorne asked.

"_Anti-pesqua weapon system__," the ship's computer said, slightly perturbed__. "Apparently an add-on since our last reconnaissance of the station_."

"_Alright, guess we're doing this the old fashioned way_," Lorne said, mentally grabbing three of the forward plasma cannons as the _Skywalker_ gave him weapons priority over the other gunners. He zoomed in on one of the tagged batteries and fired a ranging plasma shot, seeing it miss high and blow a small piece of the hull out into space.

"_Lorne…_" Sheppard growled.

"_Sorry_," he said, readjusting his aim. His next shot hit true and the battery went dead.

"_Shoot the small ones_," Sheppard said, firing off another partial main blast, "_then use the pesqua_."

As he spoke the ship put up targeting coordinates for the anti-pesqua batteries scattered across the hull as the rest of the ship's plasma cannons began firing rapidly at the increasing number of Romulan ships disengaging from the station.

"_Good call_," Lorne acknowledged, shifting his aim and taking out one of the distant batteries on the first shot. Sheppard wasn't making it easy keeping them so far away from the station, but then again he probably needed the larger attack angle to hit so many ships simultaneously.

Another minute later and he had all the anti-pesqua batteries in view knocked out.

"_Skim the hull…and take out the others_," Sheppard said as he had to concentrate to release an orange lightning blast into three Romulan ships, two of whose shields went down and became easy pickings for his plasma cannon gunners.

Lorne smiled, catching his suggestion even before Sheppard sent a brief telepathic image of what he wanted him to do. The Lantean reacquired pesqua control and focused on the battery tags on the far side of the station…then released two pesqua for each.

The tiny swarm flew up and out of the massive ship and zipped down toward the station in nearly a straight line, having to veer slightly around some floating debris, until they nearly hit the station, then curved sharply and traveled around the hull barely two meters in altitude and beneath the line of fire of the defense turrets.

Lorne watched one of them through the mental interface as it slammed into the turret and popped out the other side…then swung back around and hit it again, boring through the material as if it wasn't even there using the broadcast energy being emitted from the _Skywalker_ to burn through the device, after which Lorne retargeted the nearest main batteries and redirected the pesqua over to them.

"_Nice work_," Sheppard noted as the station's defenses went down in a handful of seconds. "_Now send some after the docked ships with their shields still down…we're getting too many to handle_."

"_On it_," Lorne said, launching a much larger swarm that wrapped itself around several of the pylons that Sheppard hadn't gotten to with the main weapon yet as the space around them was filled with green energy orbs coming from the Romulan ships and splashing against the Columnar's shields, so much so that the forward view from the Captain's chair was almost completely obscured.

"_We can take it_," Sheppard said, answering Ronon's unspoken question. "_For a while_," he amended as he fired off his last partial blast, taking out 13 ships still docked in a row, but with many gaps in between them as more than a third of the enemy fleet was now in space and hammering away at them with a vengeance.

The _Skywalker_ fired off another lox blast from the ventral starboard pillar, then Sheppard took control of all four from the ship's computer and started targeting clumps of ships as he flew the Columnar across the prongs and further into the battle so the ship could make better use of its aft plasma turrets, many of which had yet to fire a shot. As they moved inside the swarm of Romulan ships the return fire from the _Skywalker_ increased, as did its kill rate now that all its weapon systems were engaged.

Lorne's swarm of drones eventually died out, mostly from collisions with explosive ship components and a few from lucky shots by the Romulan ships, with the Columnar's pesqua power flow never abating. With all the weapon systems combined the potentia was being drained rapidly…but then again that was the point of the technology. Massive power over a short period of time, and the Romulans weren't going to last long enough to risk them running it dry.

Nor were they going to get through their shields, though they had managed to cut more than half their strength away, even with the impressive recharge rate that had the generators literally sucking energy out of the potentia faster than all of the secondary weapon systems combined. That shield stat began to increase again shortly enough, as the power flow began to surpass the damage inflicted as the Romulan fleet thinned.

When it was evident that they weren't going to be able to defend the station the remaining Romulan ships didn't turn and flee…instead they turned toward the Columnar and tried to ram it en mass.

Fortunately the Alterrans had prepared for this tactic when they designed the Columnar, and several dozen tractor beams activated to stop or deflect the incoming ships with only two getting so far as to hit the shields, with those being glancing impacts that didn't breach the protective energy shield…though they did chop away at the shield strength. The Romulans should have tried that tactic first, for then they might have stood a small chance, but they weren't going to get a second opportunity to try. Within 20 minutes of the first shot being fired all of the Romulan ships had been destroyed and the _Skywalker_ hadn't taken so much as a single hit to the hull.

"_And that's how we do that_," Sheppard said as the last ship exploded, leaving the space around the station so cluttered it looked like they were in an asteroid field. He hopped out of the Captain's chair and headed aft, clapping Ronon on the shoulder.

"_Let's go_."


	2. Chapter 2

Sheppard, Ronon, and a pair of replicators beamed directly into the station's control center, finding the architecture eerily similar to Atlantis…as was the dress of the people manning the consoles.

Half of them fled when the foursome appeared and opened fire, but the others remained at their stations, hurriedly entering commands as four iktal guards attacked the intruders, with the first two going down from Ronon's well placed rifle shots. The replicators took a couple hits, as did the armored Satedan, but none of them went down and quickly secured the command center.

Sheppard didn't even bother firing on the uglies…he had something more important to do. As soon as he materialized in the command center he sensed what the Romulans remaining at their stations were doing, which prompted him to start firing off stun blasts from the forearm gauntlets of his heavy armor, but he knew he was already too late.

As the last iktal dropped dead to the ground Sheppard leapt over the railing separating him from the central command pit, firing a pair of shots at fleeing staffers mid air, then turning his full attention to the computer consoles and the data deletion program that was running.

"_Secure the room_," Sheppard yelled as he furiously began typing commands into the Lantean-style computer interface. "_Bart, get over here!_"

Ronon and his personal replicator, Ares, continued around the room, stunning the two dozen staffers that hadn't already fled and checking all the levels in the multi-tiered room. They locked down every door they came across by physically burning out the control mechanisms, alert for more iktal heading their way, though hopefully the main boarding parties spread throughout the station would be drawing the brutes' attention away from the Alterra's primary purpose.

"_Get in there_," Sheppard said as his replicator walked up beside him.

Without hesitation Bart drove his hand into the console and spread his nanites out into the hardware, directly linking into the system as Sheppard used his Alterran knowledge downloads to try and circumvent the deletion program before it wiped out all the data they were here to steal.

"_Lock out one of the redundant memory cores_," Sheppard ordered, "_then track down the route command, I can't find it_."

"Room secure," Ronon reported.

"Damn it," Sheppard swore, tapping keys in a blur. They'd taken too long and more than half the database was already gone, with the rest still up for grabs as he played a game of cat and mouse with the deletion program, isolating certain sections of memory only to have it circumvent his blocks and try to get at the protected clusters from a different direction…all the while Sheppard was trying to locate the root command to disable the 'unstoppable' deletion protocols.

Suddenly there was a loud pounding on one of the locked doors, then the sounds of weapons fire as the iktal on the other side began to burn their way through with their heavy pistols.

"We've got company," Ronon shouted.

"_Deal with it_," Sheppard ordered, knowing that he could take a few hits on his shielded armor so he didn't bother turning around. He needed every second he could to fight this damn program. Fortunately it had to go through layers of security itself, otherwise it could have wiped out the entire database within a second. Thankfully the Romulans' computer systems were of the same design as Atlantis's, giving Sheppard an insider's knowledge of the operating systems.

"_Core isolated_," Bart reported. "_All hard lines have been severed_."

"_Good, now find that damn program and shut it down before we lose control of station functions_," Sheppard said as he tried to delay the total computer wipeout. Whoever the idiot was that wrote the program had done so in the last few minutes without heed to the consequences, for it didn't just delete data but the operating systems as well, meaning things like bay door controls and power regulation systems would have no function aside from manual input…and things like reactor control required constant computer input to avoid containment breach and a resulting overload.

One of the things the Romulans hadn't been able to reconstruct were potentias, so their ships and stations had to use active power systems rather than stored energy cells to supply sufficient power, and during his hasty computer chess game versus the crude virus he'd come across the power output specs and saw that they were using a Legrardan core…an old school Lantean power system that compressed highly incompatible matter, forcing subatomic reactions that created decent energy output, but those particles were held apart and compressed by a series of force fields that required computer control.

Drop the fields and the reaction would dissipate, but not before the slight delay of the reaction would push out and vaporize the components of the core, along with a good section of the station in the process.

"_Not in the 3rd tier locals_," Bart reported, helping Sheppard to isolate sections of the mainframe where the base deletion program was located. With that small option off the table he began searching other locations.

The door into the control room finally blew apart, with a swarm of iktal coming through the smoke firing their deadly green pistol blasts almost randomly. A console nearby Sheppard exploded from the impact but he held position and kept on typing in commands.

Ares was on the iktal three steps in through the shattered door, shooting one in the gut with the small pistol he carried, then snapping the neck of another with seemingly little effort. Ronon fired past him and downed a third, but more and more kept coming through into the control room.

"_It's somewhere in the 6th tier_," Bart reported, having tracked a split second command thread back to the active program.

Sheppard felt his shields flare as he was hit in the back, but he knew where the root program probably was now, guessing as to how the Lantean reprobate had hurriedly constructed and hid the program, and decided to hold his ground for a few more seconds.

"_Help them_," Sheppard said after finding a few 'footprints' to follow.

Bart pulled his imbedded arm out of the console and sprinted two steps across the floor then vaulted up over a second level railing and punched one of the iktal in the arm as it aimed at Sheppard, with the pistol flying aside as the creature's arm bone snapped from the ferocity of the blow.

"_Gotcha_," Sheppard said, isolating the tiny corner of the station's immense database where the main program file had been hidden. He used a base command that he doubted the Romulans even knew was in the computer system and transplanted the program into a simulation drive, separating it from the actual systems while letting it think it still had access.

A quick check of the station's active systems showed no critical damage from the wipe, though a couple of airlocks were now locked in the open position where escape craft had disengaged from, but those sections had already been sealed off by emergency closure routines, so there was no further damage.

Sheppard turned around just in time to catch an iktal pistol blast directly in the face, causing him to flinch backwards and fall against the console, but his shields held firm, though dropping to less than 40%. Growling, he stood up and started firing lethal blasts from his wrist-mounted energy weapons, downing two of the iktal that had managed to get past the trio creating a cyborg body pile just inside the door.

With a quick run up the nearby stairs Sheppard added his firepower to the carnage as Ares took a hit to the midsection and fell in pieces to the floor, having already suffered several other hits and loss of major systems, with the last blow too much to maintain cohesive integrity.

Ronon also took a hit that got through his shields, but his Lantean armor caught most of the blast on his shin plate, but judging from Ronon's howl of pain some of it must have gotten through, though his friend didn't fall to the ground. He kept firing off point blank shots with his rifle, tearing gaping holes in the iktals' flesh with each hit until the wave of reinforcements thinned and Bart was able to push them back through the door.

"Go!" Ronon said, standing on one foot as Sheppard looked over at him.

The Alterra's helmeted head nodded once then followed Bart out the door.

Ronon hopped over to the wall and leaned against it, looking down at his leg. The currently gray armor had a brightly outlined hole where the active camouflage was malfunctioning in a rainbow-like ring around the melted material. Judging from the pain, which was minimal, Ronon figured it was just a superficial wound, but he couldn't tell for sure from this angle. He stepped down on it experimentally, and while that did make it hurt more his leg didn't buckle, so apparently all of his muscles and tendons were intact.

He knew he wasn't going to like his status readings though when he got back to Atlantis. He was sure they'd be royally screwed up…yet another reason to hate the hideous cyborgs and their Romulan masters. What kind of idiots would ally themselves with the Wraith anyway?

A couple minutes later Sheppard returned along with Bart, who was showing a few holes in his otherwise pristine nanite-constructed white Lantean uniform.

"_Get plugged in and start downloading…and keep an eye on the station. Let me know if any other sabotage is happening and where the rest of our teams are_," Sheppard told the replicator as the Alterra walked over and knelt down next to Ronon. "_Let's see what we've got._"

"It's not too bad," Ronon said as Sheppard mentally retracted his armor's gloves. He winced as Sheppard touched the cauterized wound, then he felt a burning sensation that quickly transitioned over into a cool numbness.

"_Got the bleeding stopped and I numbed it a bit, the rest will have to wait until we get you back to the infirmary on the ship. My healing skills aren't up to par yet_."

"Thanks," Ronon said, shaking his leg experimentally. There was still a dull ache, but the pain was mostly gone.

"_Alright, what have we got?_" Sheppard asked Bart as he walked down into the pit-like control room's center.

A hologram of the station appeared, with seven groups of people tagged, all of which were moving freely through the station, securing key systems. Apparently they'd already fought their way through the opposition.

"_Can you track the uglies?_"

"_Yes, they're fully integrated into the computer systems_," Bart answered, placing a few more dots on the map.

"_Does that mean we can shut them down?_"

"_Not for a period of time. Temporal commands were issued, and new commands will not be recognized until the current ones expire_."

"_Relay their positions to our teams. Have them hunted down and killed, but stun and collect the civilians_."

"_What about these?_" Ronon asked, walked up behind him.

"_Tag 'em and bag 'em_," Sheppard said, beginning to sift through the database.

"Skywalker," Ronon said into his armor's helmet comm. "We have prisoners. Lock onto the tags," he said, bending over and pressing a small cylinder from his belt against the forehead of one of the unconscious Romulans, which deposited an invisible energy marker. A moment later the man disappeared in a white flash of light as Ronon walked around the room tagging the others.

"_Ha!_" Sheppard said as he hit paydirt. "_Gotcha now, bastards_."

The hologram of the station changed over into a map of the galaxy…with all of the Romulan worlds and infrastructure tagged.


	3. Chapter 3

Remus was walking the halls of Alba Longa enroute to his private sanctum within the city, passing by several of his loyal followers when a powerful voice thrust its way into his head.

_You are in danger. _

The Lantean blinked, half stopping mid stride but continuing to move forward as he tried to locate the source…but before he could place the telepathic link an image of Krista appeared beside him, with a passerby walking straight through her 'body' without noticing, which apparently meant she was only showing herself to him.

_One of your facilities was taken by the Alterra_, she explained.

_I know_, he answered telepathically so their conversation would remain private as he continued to walk on with her image floating backwards in front of him. _A minor loss. We have many_.

A look of petulance crossed her face as she put her hands on her glowing hips. _Do you also know that your people failed to delete all of the data files and that the Alterra managed to retrieve location data on ALL of your facilities?_

That stopped Remus in his tracks and a look of genuine concern manifested itself on his usually controlled visage. _That…I did not know_.

_They are on their way here as we speak, with a force strong enough to destroy this city. You must leave the planet at once. They will be here within two hours._

_How many ships?_

_Seven of their larger vessels_, she answered dismissively.

_They pulled back all of their attack fleets to guard their homeworlds_, Remus said, sensing an opportunity to exploit. _Where did they pull the ships from?_

Krista hesitated, seemingly unsure how much information she wanted to give him. _Killika, Garatun, Surrita, and Lottik._

Remus mentally placed all four planets, recognizing them as the Alterra's refuge-laden worlds. _They've left Rona exposed?_

Krista nodded once, then disappeared.

Remus reached up and activated his earpiece, sending a mental command to those Lanteans in the control room, ordering them via 'text' message to ready the city for liftoff as he turned around and headed back towards the central tower. The Alterra had almost succeeded in catching him off guard, which would probably have been a fatal blow, but now that he was one step ahead of them he could turn the situation to his advantage…if he was quick about it.

When he got into the control room his loyal Lantean crew had the city nearly ready for launch so he didn't concern himself with those matters…instead he went directly to the war room, situated in a depression on the main floor with several stations, half of which were currently manned, ringing a large galactic hologram detailing the location of his ships as well as those of the Wraith. A few select locations showed both, indicating the assault fleets holding position just outside their targets for the next stage of his grand plan for galactic domination. With the slower hyperdrives of the Wraith, placement prior to launch was critical, especially with the Alterra's ability to interfere with their hyperspace movement.

The fleets he was sending deployment orders to now had taken weeks to gather, but with 7 Alterran warships out of position he now had a genuine opportunity to hit them harder than he'd expected, making the rouse all the more believable.

"_Alba Longa is ready to ascend_," one of the Lanteans said, walking politely up beside Remus to deliver the message. "_What is our destination?_"

"_Deep space for now. This position has been compromised. Order all escorts to follow immediately. We leave this planet as barren as we found it_."

"_What of the mining facilities?_"

"_Have them deactivated and ring the crews onboard. With any luck, they'll be missed by surface scans_."

The Lantean nodded his understanding and walked off to implement Remus's orders. Within minutes the copy of Atlantis lifted off from the ocean's surface and climbed up out of the atmosphere, joining the fleet of 104 warships guarding the city in one mass exodus into hyperspace…but only 103 ships made the transition. One lagged behind for a full ten minutes before making its jump, finally leaving the water world beneath with no obvious trace of their presence.

* * *

An hour later the _Skywalker_, _Illuminasta_, _Homer_, _Honestat_, _Aspecta_, _Servatrix_, and _Tumulta_ exited hyperspace in low orbit around the back side of what the Romulan database had tagged as the planetary location of Alba Longa, the defacto capitol of the rogue Lantean civilization. It sat in a shallow 'sea' on the water world, with the only geography being that under the waves. The deepest areas were more than 12 dekmas down and sported some truly gigantic wildlife, fed by bioluminescent plant life that covered the sea floors, making the planet-wide ocean glow slightly when viewed from the night side, which the Alterran fleet had exited hyperspace over.

They'd chosen the backdoor approach, knowing from their captured data that the Romulan city had a defense fleet in orbit and were hoping to hit it laterally. As soon as the seven Columnars arrived they split like flower petals, each accelerating in different directions around the planet so that they could flank the enemy fleet with the maximum element of surprise, given that the bulk of the planet was obscuring their location…unless the Romulans had sensors on the surface or in orbit, in which case the low orbit insertion would afford them the quickest attack profile to close on the enemy.

"_No contacts detected_," the image of Luke Skywalker reported on the bridge of Sheppard's command ship. "_No comm traffic or active sensors…save for the presence of passive devices, I would say our arrival has not yet been noticed_."

"_That won't last long_," Sheppard said as he watched the hologram of the water world as 7 blue icons quickly traced their way around the surface of the planet, skimming just above the atmosphere in a tight, artificial orbit. As they made their way around the ships shared their sensor data, with the planet's other side being filled in on the map with live images…and no enemy contacts.

"_Where are they?_" O'Neill's holographic image said, popping into view beside the ship's avatar. Soon the other ship captains' images appeared as well as the attack fleet made its way around the water world and rendezvoused where the enemy city was supposed to have been.

"_I don't know_," Sheppard said, standing up out of his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. "_The city might be cloaked, but I didn't think their ships had that capability_."

"_They don't_," Stan Stevenson confirmed.

"_Might not they be stationed outside the system for quick recall?_" Liona suggested. "_They've employed that tactic before._"

"_They have, but the information stated that the guard fleet was in orbit_," Sheppard said, starting to get a bad feeling about this.

"_While we're waiting for them to show up and get their asses kicked_," O'Neill said sarcastically, "_would you like us to start randomly shooting the water, or do you have a way of detecting a cloaked city?_"

"_Luke, show me all available ring platforms_," Sheppard said.

"_I'm only showing our ships_," Skywalker said, updating the map upon his request. "_Nothing more…wait, auxiliary echo detected, multiple sites_."

On the map a slew of locations in three regional zones appeared.

"_Deactivated rings detected, access locked but locations confirmed_."

"_Sensor focus_," Sheppard ordered, with the _Skywalker_ upping its active sensor beam intensity and targeting the narrow surface zones tagged. As soon as it did additional information was updated on the map, with one facility brought up 'off' the planet and enlarged for easy viewing. It was an outpost of some sort, which Sheppard recognized as a modified version of a Lantean oceanic mining facility.

"_Hello_," O'Neill commented.

"_Leftovers_…" Trey Stevenson said after a moment's study.

Sheppard frowned. "_Looks like they picked up and left_."

"_Perhaps in response to your previous assault?_" Liona asked. "_They may have assumed this location was compromised._"

"_They may have flying cities_," O'Neill pointed out, "_but those shipyards aren't going anywhere_."

Sheppard turned to his ship's avatar. "_Where's the closest one?_"

The map suddenly shrank down into a pinpoint as a galactic regional map took its place, with a slew of enemy positions tagged, with one pulsing in highlight. "_12 minutes away_."

"_New target_," Sheppard announced. "_Let's see if they've moved anything else_."

"_All of us?_" Liona asked.

"_Yes_," Sheppard said, sitting down in the control chair and mentally linking with the Columnar's helm control. "_Shoot anything that moves…then hit the stuff that doesn't_."

"_My kind of orders_," O'Neill said just before his hologram cut off. One by one they all ceased communication and began repositioning their ships for a short jump through hyperspace, thanks to the massive engines the ships carried and the equally massive amount of energy that the potentias afforded them. Had they wanted to, they could have traveled the galaxy, tip to tip, in less than a day at maximum speed, making the otherwise long journey to the nearest Romulan shipyard appear like it was just next door.

"_I thought that intel was too good to be true_," Lorne commented, seated behind Sheppard with the rest of the bridge crew.

"_You win some, you lose some_," John said dismissively.

"_Was O'Neill right about the shipyards not having hyperdrives?_"

"_The one we captured didn't, but there are other ways to move things through hyperspace_."

"_You think they're repositioning everything?_"

"_I don't know, but if they are we might be able to catch some. They've haven't had much time_."

"_Worth a try_," Lorne said, not convinced it was going to be that easy. "_Hate to have this whole party go to waste._"

"_I'll try and find something for you to blow up_," Sheppard said, watching through mind's eye as his ship jumped into hyperspace.

* * *

The _Skywalker_ emerged at the target destination third in line, just in time to see a maximum yield blast fire off from the _Homer_ and hit the targeted shipyard's shields. The yellow/green beam struck and sustained, briefly, before a massive oversurge pulse traveled down the energy line and slammed into the already weakened shields, which popped like a bubble, allowing the rest of the primary weapon's charge to core into the station, cutting off a fifth of it before the beam abated.

Dozens of Romulan ships were already active and engaging O'Neill's Columnar, with Liona's _Honestat_ moving up beside it to position for her own shot…neither ship had even bothered to open its weapons pods, using only their plasma cannons to return fire on the enemy ships, which were too few in number to cause them any grief.

As the other Columnars arrived in sequence the _Honestat_ fired off its primary weapon, with the beam cutting through the bulk of the station, then exploding it in an impressive fireball/shrapnel display when the oversurge pulse hit, with some of the debris pieces impacting and damaging the enemy ships. Many more pieces hit the leading Columnars, but they bounced harmlessly off their powerful shields.

"_Better hurry up, Lorne, or there won't be anything left to shoot_."

"_I love these ships_," the Lantean said, watching the kill power they'd just thrown down as he mentally snagged control of several plasma cannons and began targeting the few Romulan ships in play as the rest of the Columnars pounced on them like sharks on a school of minnows. Hopelessly outmatched, the last three surviving ships made a run for hyperspace, with one of them being tagged by a lox blast from the _Tumulta_ and exploding just shy of the already open hyperspace window.

"_That went well_," Skywalker commented. "_Would you like another?_"

"_Yes please_," Sheppard said, feeling a bit better. As long as they had the position of their shipyards they might as well run down through the list while they could. There wasn't much the Romulans could do aside from running and hiding against 7 Columnars, aside from bringing in the bulk of their fleet, whose current whereabouts were unknown. "_Random location within the local eighth of the galaxy, let's not make this predictable._"

The holographic images of O'Neill and Liona appeared again, followed soon by the other Captains.

"_Sheppard, who gets the kill tag?_" O'Neill asked, gesturing to Liona's hologram, which was position synced with the others through the comm system on all 7 Columnars so their movements and eye lines would match up. "_I took the shields down and drew first blood._"

"_Don't you have more important things to worry about?_" Liona contested.

"_Hey, I just got my brand spankin new ship and I want to start a kill tally, so who gets the station kill?_"

Sheppard suppressed a smile and remained dead pan. "_Taking down the shields and nicking off a piece counts as an assist. Liona gets the kill._"

O'Neill glanced over at her image, looking like he was about to argue, then relented. "_Fair enough_."

"_Do you want us to split up to maximize our timeframe?_" Stan asked.

"_Not individually. I'll take the Homer and Honestat with me, you take the others. We need to kill these as fast as possible, and there's no knowing how many ships will be on guard, plus I wouldn't put it past the Romulans to have a few surprises_."

"_Clones vs. Transformers, huh? We'll take that challenge. Just make sure to tag your targets so we don't double up_."

"_Luke, split up the list, average deployment ranges for both_."

The avatar's image nodded, then a frown crossed its holographic face. "_You might want to put a hold on that, I'm picking up a distress call from Surrita. Large attack force, Romulan and Wraith. They're calling for reinforcements._"

"_Show me_," Sheppard said, his gut tightening.

"_One moment_," Skywalker said, contacting the sanctuary world and requesting a telemetry link. A moment later the planetary sensor network feed was displayed on the bridge hologram. Much as they had last time, the enemy fleet was engaging the Boa in orbit along with a Columnar and its support fleet that were protecting two Alterran cities on the planet's surface.

"_Additional distress calls incoming_," the ship amended. "_Killika, Garatun, and Lottik are also reporting simultaneous engagements._"

The other three sanctuary worlds and Alterran strongholds popped up as smaller maps in the front of the bridge, with the Captains' avatars having to shrink and reposition to fit everything in.

"_What about Dorra?_" Sheppard asked, referring to their only other and newest sanctuary world.

"_Checking…_"

Sheppard waited, watching the feeds from the other locations as the ship's computer interfaced with Dorra's planetary computer to retrieve their status.

"_No activity as of yet, but the enemy has demonstrated an ability to diminish hyperspace detection range, so an attack could still be eminent_."

"_This isn't coincidence_," Sheppard said, aghast. "_They attacked as soon as we took out this station._"

"_It's worse than that_," Trey Stevenson said. "_They had to have those attack fleets prepositioned in order to respond this fast, especially with the Wraith's slow hyperdrives_."

Sheppard's jaw clenched angrily. "_We've been had_."


	4. Chapter 4

"_How far away is the closest one?_" Sheppard asked the ship's holographic avatar.

"_Garatun is 2 hours, fifty four minutes away at maximum hyperspace velocity_," Luke answered.

"_Damn_," Sheppard whispered, seeing the thousands of enemy ships arriving on the map and heading straight towards the Boa formation guarding the twin cities on the surface of the jungle world. A pair of Columnars and their supplementary drone fleets in a higher orbit moved to intercept immediately. "_Everyone get going, our orbital defenses aren't going to last forever_."

"_All of us to Garatun?_" Liona asked as the massive ships began to pivot and align for hyperspace jumps.

Sheppard hesitated a moment as he mentally logged the jump command through the control chair's interface, then let the _Skywalker_ handle the final course modifications as it ran up its hyperspace capacitors to maximum yield. "_Yes…no_," he said, thinking through the tactics of the situation as he spoke. "_You and Jack stick with the mission. The rest of us will go to Garatun and break up the party, if we're not too late._"

"_Ryan will be redeploying the fleet as we speak_," Stan reminded him. "_They'll at least be able to hold out for a few hours. The Wraith aren't going to be able to pull that tunneling trick twice_."

"_And we need to hit them while they're vulnerable_," Trey agreed. "_This whole attack could be a diversion to draw us off._"

"_Pretty damn big diversion_," O'Neill commented.

"_Whatever they're up to_," Sheppard said, cutting the conversation short, "_we've got to get back. You two double team the stations, move through the list one by one and blow up everything you find. Might cause them to think twice and pull back some of their ships…or at least it might mean the shipyards are lightly defended_."

"_Will do_," O'Neill said seriously. "_We'll kick 'em where it hurts. Good luck_."

"_I have a feeling by the end of the day we're going to need it_," Sheppard said as his ship jumped into hyperspace along with the others.

* * *

Half an hour into their return trip the situation looked ever worse. The Wraith fleet was throwing themselves against the Alterran defenses, backed up by an equally determined, yet slightly more self-conscious Romulan fleet that was deliberately targeting the Columnars to the exclusion of all else. Taking advantage of their early numbers, the Romulans formed a halo around the _Attonos_ and unleashed a torrent of energy against her shields even as their numbers were thinned by the nearby Boa and the support fleet, as well as the intimidating firepower of both Columnars.

Evan Stevenson knew what they were trying to do and moved his ship through the attackers and punctured the halo formation, giving his ship a semi-quiet left flank that the ship used to its advantage by shifting shield power to cover the brunt of the attack as he tried to stretch out the engagement zone and thin the attackers.

The Romulans responded immediately, shifting positions to pursue and reposition around the much larger ship, but the maneuver did succeed in taking them away from the bulk of the Wraith fleet that was eating up the Boa, but at a cost of many ships and time, for the orbital defense platforms were making them pay dearly for each victory.

A bright lance of yellow/green energy cored through one of the Romulan ships, coming up from the surface as the city defenses began to come into play as the _Attonos_ dropped in altitude, its shields near buckling. Another two shots came up, picking off the nearest Romulans ahead of a wave of pesqua visibly rising up in a glowing swarm set against the deep greens of the planet below.

Suddenly the Romulans moved, either sensing the threat of the ground-based weapons or realizing their numbers were beginning to thin too much, and simultaneous accelerated towards the Columnar, intent on ramming her.

The nearest ships, unable to gain much momentum, were easily caught and redirected by the ship's tractor beams, designed to counter just this sort of threat, but the ships kept coming, some of which actually ran into each other in all the chaos, but after several dozen successful deflections the first ship got through and hammered the _Atonnos_' shields, cracking and disintegrating against them…but bleeding off a massive amount of energy in the process.

The next ship that hit suffered a similar fate, but the third got through and dug into the replicator armor, bouncing off at an odd angle as the Columnar fired its engines at full strength in an attempt to outrun the attackers…or at least to throw off their suicide runs.

Seven more hit, with the later two punching through the armor and digging into the hull, taking out weapons batteries and some internal systems, but the sheer mass of the Columnar kept the ship flying and fighting as more and more Romulan ships hit the hull, one of which stuck in the side rather than bouncing off, looking for all the world like a giant knife stuck in the ship's gut.

Another ship hit the port weapons pod, taking out one of the four lox generators along with a chunk of the pod as the pesqua arrived and swirled around the Alterran ship in a glowing swarm, bouncing off the Romulan ships' shields momentarily before depleting them of energy, then tearing apart the enemy ships without so much as touching the hull of the Columnar. They swept through the closest Romulan ships, destroying well over a hundred before dying out and giving the _Attonos_ a moment of peace, aside from a few subsequent debris impacts.

The rest of the Romulans, in disarray from the overwhelming attack, quickly reformed and began driving against the Columnar like angry bees, hitting it in ones and twos, with the ship only able to redirect part of them with its surviving tractor beams as the debris around the ship began to glow from contact with the planet's upper atmosphere.

Several more Joktala blasts from the surface picked off ships, but the enemy was hell bent on taking out the massive ship and sacrificed their remaining numbers to render as much hull damage as they could, firing their weapons into the unshielded ship just before impact, which was pushing the _Attonos_ further down into the atmosphere.

A point blank lox blast from the port side took out the last two Romulans before they could hit, but by that time the damage was too great and nearly all engine power was gone, with the _Attonos_ falling in a fireball towards the surface several hundred kilometers east of the sanctuary cities. It impacted the surface at reduced speed, thanks to the remaining inertial engines and the computational speed of the ship's computer, digging a deep furrow into the jungle 22 kilometers long before it finally came to rest in a smoking heap with the superstructure mostly intact, setting fire to the forest around it.

On the orbital scans Sheppard was watching he could see a giant, glowing scratch on the planet's surface where the ship had hit, along with an immediate status report from the _Attonos_' computer, indicating that there were still survivors onboard and some functional systems, but there was no way the ship was going to make space again short of sending in a recovery team.

With an angry thought Sheppard opened up a comm channel to Atlantis, with Ryan's holographic image responding a long minute later.

"_Are you watching this?_"

"_Every second_," he responded through a clenched jaw.

"_Turn the Attero device on_," Sheppard said icily.

"_That won't stop any reinforcements enroute_," Stevenson reminded him, "_unless they're Wraith and more than one jump away._"

"_I think they're throwing everything at us at once…I don't want any of them getting away before we arrive. Those bastards are going to pay for this_."

Stevenson nodded, easily convinced. "_I'll take care of it_," he said, disappearing from the _Skywalker_'s bridge.

"_ETA?_" Sheppard asked the computer.

"_2 hours, seven minutes, thirty two seconds_."

"_We're not going to make it in time, are we?_" Lorne asked from behind him.

Sheppard didn't turn around to respond, choosing to keep his eyes on the four holographic battle displays. "_They aren't going to get through the cities' shields with the number of ships they're losing…unless they have another trick up their sleeve_."

"_I'll take that as a maybe_," Lorne said, sensing Sheppard's uncertainty. "_It wouldn't make sense for them to come all this way without something planned._"

"_That's what worries me_."

* * *

Stevenson left the Atlantis war room at a run, heading through the city's interior up to the control room knowing time was of the essence. He was the only Alterran currently in the city, and only the Alterra had the access codes and knowledge to reach the gate center. As he ran towards the nearest transporter in the Alterran wing of the city he reached out telepathically and searched for a particular mind…one operating on a slightly erratic and hyperactive frequency, easily distinguishable from the rest of the Lantean population.

* * *

_McKay! _

"Ayyhh!" Rodney screamed in a frantic, high pitched voice, pushing away from his computer as though spooked by a ghost. His chair tipped over in the process and fell off backward onto his ass.

_Calm down, it's Ryan. I need you to get to the stargate now_.

"Is there something wrong with the comm system, or are you deliberately trying to give me a heart attack?" he said to the air, sitting on the floor and rubbing the back of his neck.

_I need you on Rona_.

"Rona? What happened…did you finally break the damn thing? I wouldn't be surprised with how often you've been flipping the switch on and off."

_Janus is away and you're the next most experienced with the device. Now get moving. _

"Can it wait? I'm in the middle of something?"

_No. We're under attack on four planets and I'm headed to deactivate the stargates now. _

"Oh…well why didn't you just say so," McKay said, getting to his feet. "How we doing?"

_We just lost a Columnar._

"Oh crap," Rodney said, hurrying out of his lab. "I'm on my way."

* * *

Twelve minutes later the stargate on Rona activated and McKay walked out onto the perfectly smooth stone tiles that made up the floor of the Alterran outpost. The event horizon shut down behind him immediately, cut off prematurely by Ryan as soon as the traveler had been deposited, leaving Rodney in the dim orange/red backlighting that seemed to manifest itself from random wall segments.

Rodney turned his neck to glance back at the deactivated gate. "Well he's in a hurry," the Lantean said, walking off the small rotunda that the stargate sat within. When he passed across the perimeter the outpost detected the presence of his genetic key and powered up, with the low lighting being replaced by bright whites, blues, and greens. Bypassing the control chair, Rodney walked into another section of the outpost and down a stairwell that led to the 'basement' that housed the Attero device.

He quickly brought the status monitors to life and ensured that the power feed was nominal, then began to run through the startup checklist. He was almost all the way through when the comm system began chirping.

"That was fast," he commented, finishing his preparatory actions before walking over and pulling up the intergalactic 'text' message.

_**Pegasus network deactivated. Power up authorized. **_

"And the monkey presses the magic button," McKay said dramatically as he stepped over and keyed for activation. The status monitors rose to predictable levels and the hyperspace jamming blanket attuned to disrupt the Wraith hyperdrives spread out across the galaxy, locking down their access to the alternate dimension and preventing any further jumps from occurring, trapping the attacking fleets in Alterran territory.

"Hurry up and wait," Rodney complained, having nowhere to go thanks to the gate system being deactivated. He rekeyed the comm system for outpost-wide notification and headed back up to ground level, intent on grabbing the Lantean version of a sandwich and taking a long nap.

* * *

"What?!" McKay said groggily, waking up to a warning klaxon. He rubbed his left eye three times before blinking away his stupor as his mind raced to catch up with his body. Just as he realized that something had to be seriously wrong he felt/heard a dull impact cascade that was eerily familiar.

"No, no, no, no, no," he said, fear bolting the scientist to his feet as he ran out of the residential area and over to the control room. On his way he passed through a short atrium on the perimeter that had a curved, clear roof that showed the source of the disturbing sounds. The active shield over the outpost was being pummeled from orbit by some type of energy weapons, not beams, but packets of destructive force coming down so fast they blended into a waterfall that created a constant, muted roar.

"Oh…crap," McKay said in a whisper, then hurried off back to the control chair.

He slid in and powered up the interface with a panicked thought…which displayed an armada of Romulan ships in low orbit assaulting the outpost. The computer tagged 212 of them.

Rodney's next thought was to how much time he had left, and the chair responded by emblazoning a holographic shield penetration estimate over his head next to the ship icons. It read 31:34 and began counting down with morbid precision.

A counter appeared on the opposite side of the holographic display, just above McKay's left hand.

**1,225**

That was how many pesqua the outpost had to defend itself with.

With an angry thought, Rodney launched them _all_.

The holds underneath the outpost opened up and the glowing missiles leapt out through the open air gaps in the outpost superstructure and passed through the shields…directly into the torrent of weaponsfire.

The pesqua counter began to drop rapidly as the leading waves were destroyed the moment they hit the energy stream, with a few dozen emerging around the edges and streaking up at the approaching ships.

"No!" Rodney shrieked in horror, realizing his mistake and mentally redirecting the remaining pesqua to exit the shields laterally. The last of the swarm reached out from the outpost in three fingers, which arced up at the formation of enemy ships and left the pesqua hold empty and the outpost out of offensive options.

The weapons did their job, however, racing up into orbit and assaulting the Romulan ships' shields, tapping at them like angry bees until they broke, then burrowing into their hulls before detonating with what energy they had left, which was being augmented by broadcast recharge coming from the outpost's potentia, otherwise they wouldn't have persisted as long as they did. The pesqua consumed 19 of the enemy ships…leaving 193 to continue firing down on the surface.

The shield breach counter reset to 37:12.

"Not fair," Rodney whined, his mind racing through his limited options. He could call for support, but he had no idea where the nearest friendly ship was, and if their fleet was already engaging the enemy elsewhere, then they might not even have a ship to spare.

"I've got to get out of…oh no," he said as his mind caught up to the fact that his only escape option was the stargate, which was safely housed within the outpost, but currently deactivated with no way for Rodney to override the gate center's control.

"I am so dead."


	5. Chapter 5

Sheppard watched over the blaze of the _Skywalker_'s forward lox generators as several of the distant Wraith ships turned away from the battle that they were now losing against the five newly arrived Columnars, along with a damaged 6th and what remained of the Alterran support fleet. There was still well over a 1000 enemy ships remaining, most of them Wraith, but they were spread out over a wide battlefield and it seemed those not currently under assault were rethinking the wisdom of continuing what now appeared to be a futile attempt to take the planet.

A group of 8 cruisers made a formation turn and launched themselves into freshly opened hyperspace windows…disintegrating themselves on impact.

"_You're not going anywhere_," Sheppard said under his breath as he controlled the helm, primary weapon, and two of the lox generators simultaneously. The cities beneath them had remained untouched, their shield strength never even coming into play as the enemy had taken a lengthy amount of time taking out the Boa and contending with the planet's guardian fleet, which was now in shambles.

Once the Wraith saw that the Attero device was once again active no further attempts to escape manifested, but their battle tactics shifted into a combination of assault/suicide runs with the ships closing to point blank range and slugging it out just above the Columnars' shield perimeters…which succeeded in small part by taking them out of the firing arcs of the Alterra's main weapons, but which also left them sitting directly over the plasma cannons.

Soon there was so much Wraith debris circling the ships that it was blocking the firing lines, as well as the tractor beams, with the Wraith cruisers taking advantage of this by making kamikaze runs into their own debris and knocking it and themselves against the massive shield walls, draining additional power that their weapons alone could not have done.

"Sheppard!" a panicked McKay hologram shouted as it appeared on the _Skywalker_'s bridge next to the ship's avatar.

"What! Rodney? This really isn't a good time," he said, trying to keep his focus on his firing lines as he tried to pilot the ship through the debris to a less cluttered fighting position.

"I'm under attack!"

"What do you mean, where are you?"

"Stevenson sent me to turn on the Attero device, now there's a pissed off Romulan fleet in orbit half an hour away from breaching the shields and I can't leave because the stargate is shut off!"

"They're hitting Rona?" Sheppard asked as a sinking feeling crept into his gut.

"Yes!"

Sheppard squeezed his eyes shut for a moment as he fired off another lox blast at nearly point blank range into the prow of a battleship that was making a suicide run. It ripped apart the forward section of the long needle-like ship and blunted the hull, as well as twisting it askew. The ship's computer pushed it even further aside with a tractor beam, causing it to hit on the port side and deflect underneath, ramming into three separate pieces of debris before coming to a halt crisscrossing the length of the Columnar. The ventral plasma cannons began ripping it apart immediately as more and more Wraith cruisers tried to duck through the debris and ram the ship, firing off their blue plasma weapons as they approached, making for an insanely chaotic battlefield.

"How many ships?" Sheppard asked, trying to juggle weapons control and the conversation simultaneously.

"A hundred and ninety seven."

"Crap," Sheppard said, trying to assess their options. All their ships were tied up defending the sanctuary worlds or were too far away to get to the battles in time. Rona wasn't that far away from Lottik, but they were in no position to send help. The enemy had tied them up defending their civilian populations and now they were using the distraction to hit Rona.

"Insane crap…what are you going to do about it?" McKay pressed.

"Have you tried the pesqua?"

"Done and gone, they couldn't take out all the ships."

"What? How many did you take out?"

"That doesn't matter. They've got plenty left in orbit and I've got nothing to shoot with. Please tell me you have a ship nearby."

"We've got our hands full, Rodney. Call Ryan and see what he can do."

"Oh sure, like I didn't already think of that. I sent him a message but he hasn't responded back yet and I can't get out of here until he unlocks the door or somebody comes and picks me up."

"How the hell did they even know where it was?" Sheppard asked angrily, firing off a short burst from the primary weapon to clear a huge chunk of debris. The beam cut clean through and hit a dreadnaught on the far side, impacting on the underside but not causing catastrophic damage. The ship's heavy weapons continued to spew swaths of plasma into the debris field, some of which made it through and splashed against the Columnar's shields along with hundreds of small hits from the cruisers, almost turning the invisible barrier opaque with impact disruptions.

"I don't know and I really don't care. Get me out of here!"

"Hang on, I'll figure out something," Sheppard promised.

"Hanging on for…exactly 31 minutes and 11 more seconds," Rodney noted.

With a thought Sheppard set Rodney's hologram off to the side and cut his end of the transmission feed.

"_Get me Atlantis_," he told Luke, switching back to Lingara. Rodney knew how to speak the Alterran language, but for some reason he rarely used it, especially in intense situations. Both of them had received the language neural download, but for Sheppard it almost seemed like his native tongue by now.

"_Check that_," he amended, "_send the following message to Ryan's nunta, then get me Atlantis_."

* * *

"_The sterilization of the eastern continent is nearly complete_," Andara told Ryan as they walked through the narrow pathways in Jcora's capitol 'city,' though that term didn't truly apply to the sparse infrastructure. "_Another month of intensive effort and we should have the infection completely eradicated from the planet_."

"_You'll need to stay alert for dormant pockets_," Stevenson reminded her.

"_Of course_."

"_How's Phil's progress?_"

"_He's pushed back the Nasara advance, but our one Columnar can't be in multiple places at once, so for every system he clears four more at taken, then he flies off to purge them and the enemy reclaims the ones they lost. I know with the war in Pegasus we can't spare more ships, but I don't see how we're going to neutralize the enemy until we get more resources_."

"_Where have the drones and Boa been going?_"

"_Mostly here, we wanted to establish a stronghold free from further infection where we could collate what remains of Feriorla infrastructure and begin a serious attempt at rebuilding_."

"_If you use future shipments as placeholders for the planets that Phil clears, it will effectively allow him to fight off, or at least delay, the retaking of recovered territory_."

"_We discussed that, but eventually came to the conclusion that we would lose too many of our few shipments and decided that we would only deploy them in significantly numbered clusters to maximize longevity_."

"_That's a long term strategy, but workable. And with things escalating in Pegasus and Avalona, we're not going to have a lot of resources to throw elsewhere for the foreseeable future_."

"_You still plan on reclaiming Avalon?_"

"_It's not a high priority, but at some point, yes_."

"_What significance is it other than nostalgia?_"

"_I'd attribute it more to pride. It used to be our capitol, so we're going to take it back_."

"_Putting the old pieces back together?_"

"_Not entirely. A lot has changed, and even when we do reclaim Avalon it won't be our functional capitol, but we are going to rebuild the planet. Its sorry state now is an embarrassment for those of us who remember what it once was_."

"_And what of the indigenous population?_"

"_They're going to…_" Ryan broke off as a message came through on his wrist-bound communicator. He pulled up the intergalactic communiqué and frowned.

"_What is it?_" Andara asked, sensing his mood shift.

"_I have to get back_," he said, turning and running down the narrow, smoothed rock pathways that wound their way through the grass-like spires that made up this settlement. There were thousands of the thin, 8 story high structures spread out lazily across the plain set between two short mountain ranges on the east and northwest, with many more clusters spread out across the Feriorla's homeworld. This grouping wasn't the largest on the planet, but it was the most significant due to a recently constructed Terra sitting amongst the slightly curved building 'stalks.'

The outpost was more than a dekmas away by foot and Ryan knew he had to hurry. McKay's message indicated that there was only a limited amount of time before the shield collapsed, due not to depletion of the potentia, but to eventual recharge attrition. The former Lanteans knew the dynamics of their shield matrices well, even if they didn't fully understand them, and it appeared they'd done their homework as to how much brute force firepower would be required to eat through the static shield energy at a rate faster than the emitters could replace it…which meant they either had to get reinforcements to Rona within minutes or he had to evac McKay, which wasn't possible via stargate while the Attero device was online.

As he ran down the frustratingly winding paths he had to duck in and out of barefooted Feriorla walking to and fro in a slow and relaxed, but deliberate pace…one that was completely incompatible with Ryan's superhuman speed. A lot of the pedestrians actually jumped into his way as he approached and startled them, making him waste precious steps going around, or sometimes jumping over, the sparse crowds.

When he was almost to the outpost another message came through on his nunta, which he awkwardly glanced down at as he continued to run. When he saw that it was a pointless message from Sheppard inquiring as to his whereabouts he didn't bother to read the rest or respond as he crossed through the outer perimeter of the outpost, passing through the active shield that stretched all the way down to ground level. The protective barrier was doing little more than blocking the wind at the moment and allowed him to pass through without slowing, though given sufficient inertial force it would automatically put up a block to protect against ballistic attacks.

Once inside and back on Alterran 'soil' he made a bee line for the yellow stargate, mentally dialing the intergalactic connection as he ran so that the event horizon drew down in front of him three steps prior to entry.

He exited inside the gate center and continued his sprint up to the control room where he immediately accessed the live combat feeds from Pegasus, relayed through a more complex comm system, which he also activated to get a live holographic connection through to Rona.

"_McKay, if you haven't already, turn the Attero device off._"

Rodney's face lit up with a mixture of relief and anger. "About time. Where the hell have you been?"

"Is it off?" Stevenson reiterated.

"No…figured if I was going to die I might as well take a few more Wraith ships down with me."

"What are you talking about?" Sheppard asked.

"I was talking to Ryan…who finally showed up," McKay said to Sheppard's hologram which was 'standing' next to Ryan's from Rodney's point of view.

"He's there?" Sheppard asked.

"No, he's…why isn't this a conference call?"

"Relay my signal," Ryan said. "The Columnars don't have the tier 2 comm system."

"Well that's an obvious design flaw."

"Just do it."

"Done," McKay said, diverting the intergalactic real-time feed into the tier 1 comm net that the Columnars and their other ships used to communicate within galaxy via hologram. Only cities and outposts contained the tier 2 systems, which were large and delicate. Tier 3 comm systems were compact, rare, and used a difficult to build dimensional relay to allow for high volume real-time communication over extreme range, otherwise known as a Mentis Transitia.

"_Oh, there you are_," Sheppard said as Ryan's hologram materialized. "_Where have you been?_"

"_McKay, turn it off so I can come save you!_" Ryan shouted.

"Right," McKay said, jumping up out of the control chair and running back down to the basement.

"_I was in Dracona_," Stevenson explained to Sheppard. "_What's going on?_"

"_We're finishing up here, then heading over to Killika_. _The defense fleet there had to pull out of the system to keep from getting overrun. They're back at it now, harassing the enemy fleet as it bombards the city. Same sort of thing happening at Surrita and Lottik. They don't seem to have a battle plan this time, just pounding us so hard we can't ignore them. I think this whole thing was arranged to keep us busy while they take out the Attero device_."

"_How did they find it?_" Stevenson asked.

"_Good question_," Sheppard agreed. "_I've got a pair of Traveler ships heading over there to try and pick up Rodney, but the timeframe doesn't look good. I about went myself, but we were going to be four minutes late so I didn't divert. Get him out of there before the Romulans blow the place to hell_."

"_I'll take care of him, you just take the pressure off our cities…_"

"_Before they can start poking through the shields, I know_," Sheppard finished for him. "_They're also ramming us with everything they've got, and if they start that approach with the city shields they're not going to last as long. They haven't started yet, from what I can tell, which tells me this whole thing really is a diversion._"

The image of a huffing McKay jumped back into the holographic control chair. "It's off."

"_I'm coming to get you now_," Ryan said, his hologram disappearing.

"Just turn on the stargate!" he tried to yell, but was too late. "Why did he do that?"

"You can ask him when he gets there," Sheppard said, offering a half sarcastic wave. "Gotta go."

His hologram shut down as well, leaving McKay sitting in the control chair watching the orbiting fleet continue to pound down on the outpost as the time to shield breach dropped below 6 minutes.

"Why does this always have to happen to me?" Rodney said, getting up and running to the stargate.

* * *

Two minutes later the stargate activated and Ryan came running through, deactivating it behind him with a thought, then redialing Atlantis the same way.

"_Go_," Ryan told an eagerly awaiting McKay after he manually deactivated the Atlantis shield on the other end.

"What are you going to do?"

"_I'll be right behind you, now go!_"

"Going," Rodney said, content to walk into the event horizon and escape the impending doom.

Ryan mentally ordered the stargate to remain connected, then ran over to the control room and slid into the chair, resetting the sensors and getting a detailed sitrep, all the while transmitting the outpost's sensor logs to Atlantis.

"_You idiot_," he whispered as he reviewed McKay's pesqua launch as the counter dropped under 2 minutes.

The holographic image of the ships in orbit didn't waver. They just sat there, firing away without stop as Ryan stared at them, wondering how the hell they'd managed to pull this off. With reluctance he triggered the database deletion and potentia dispersion protocols, then leisurely got up out of the chair. It powered down in his absence as he jogged off down into the basement. When he got to the similarly deactivated control console for the Attero device he raised his right hand and generated a glowing bioplasma orb in his palm, which he subsequently sent streaming into the panel, melting/destroying it in a shower of sparks and debris.

Ryan turned around and opened the door into the chamber that held the actual device and repeated the process, destroying the technology just in case the enemy had any ideas about taking the outpost intact or sifting through the rubble.

Ryan ran back upstairs and over to the stargate, keenly aware of his remaining time. He had 42 seconds left before the estimated shield breach, but he stopped short of the gate and stood still as if something had gotten his attention. He closed his eyes for a moment but resisted the urge to turn around. It was faint, but he was almost certain he was feeling the presence of an ascended being behind him, watching the imminent destruction of the outpost.

Not wanting to give away his growing ability to feel into Alfleheym, he opened his eyes and spun around, looking at everything in a nostalgic goodbye, then raising his hand towards the ceiling and extending his middle finger in a gesture of defiance to the attacking fleet before ducking into the stargate and traveling back to Atlantis.

Seconds later the shield did breach in one small area…then reclosed within a millisecond, only to be breached again. This cycle repeated hundreds of times in the next few moments until enough destructive energy snuck through the gaps to damage the shield emitters. When those went down the full force of the orbital bombardment ripped the outpost apart.

Had the attack stopped there, the potentia had been programmed to release its remaining energy from its dimensional storage pocket harmlessly into hyperspace moments after the shield fell, but it never got to that point, for the brutal attack destroyed the potentia's casing before that could happen and the resultant energy bleed occurred anyway, preventing the capture and reuse of the device, or anything else in the outpost.

The Romulan fleet stayed long enough to burn through the upper layers and down into the compartments that held the already destroyed Attero device. Their green energy weapons turned the once beautiful outpost into an unrecognizable pile of rubble and slag within minutes. When they finally ceased bombardment they turned about and jumped out of the system, leaving a smoking pyre rising into the sky marking the site of their victory.

* * *

Remus watched the successful mission via hologram in his personal quarters in Alba Longa with a grim smile on his face. He's successfully turned a nearly fatal mistake into a resounding victory. With a touch to his headpiece he sent a mental recall order over to his staff in the war room, who relayed the command to what remained of their fleets assaulting the Alterran worlds. Within minutes both the Iktal ships and the Wraith pulled back and jumped into hyperspace, leaving behind most of their sister ships in the form of floating debris.

Remus walked over to a private communications terminal and sent a query signal. Six minutes later he received a response in the form of a hologram of a red-haired Wraith queen.

"_The Attero device has been destroyed_," Remus informed her. "_I suggest you get your ships moving before they decide to build another one._"

"_That we shall_…" she said with a satisfied hiss.


End file.
